Various techniques for providing awards to users based on game play exist. Conventional gaming systems may provide randomly selected awards in a progressively tiered awards system. Other conventional systems may provide awards based on an amount of total time a user spent engaging in the online game. Yet other conventional systems may impose penalties for failing to complete an action in an online game within a pre-determined time frame relative to the game. Conventional systems, however, suffer from various drawbacks and inefficiencies relating to providing incentives for a user to engage in continuous play and rewarding less time spent away from the game. For example, conventional systems may fail to base the provision of awards based on a user's real-time completion of a task, where a time clock for the task begins (in real-time) at the completion of the user's immediately prior task.